Wall Street closed lower on Wednesday after US retail sales figures came in at 1.3% for October which was higher than expectations, after levelling off in September, indicating consumers are still spending despite interest rates being aggressively hiked month on month. The Dow Jones closed flat, the S&P500 fell 0.71%, and the Nasdaq ended the session down 1.51%. Yesterday, former US President Donald Trump also announced he will be running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, nearly 2-years after allegedly inspiring the deadly Capitol riot. The hotter than expected retail figures come despite Target warning of weaker consumer demand to come and that the department store giant had instilled a multi-billion-dollar cost-cutting plan which sent shares in the company down 13% on Wednesday.

Over in Europe, markets also closed lower as geopolitical tensions rise in the wake of escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine. The STOXX600 fell 1%, Germany’s DAX lost 1% and the French CAC shed half a percent. In the UK the FTSE100 also closed 0.25% lower on Wednesday.

What to watch today:

• Ahead of the local trading day, the SPI futures are expecting the ASX to open Thursday’s session 0.14% lower.
• In commodities, crude oil is trading 1.40% lower at US$85.70 per barrel, gold is trading 0.3% lower at US$1773 per ounce, and iron ore is trading flat at US$97 per tonne.
• The Aussie dollar has weakened overnight to buy 67.33 US cents, 56.93 British pence, 93.87 Japanese yen and NZ$1.10.
• Investors will be awaiting the release of Australia’s unemployment rate data for October, which is released at 11:30am AEDT.

Trading Ideas:

• Trading Central has identified a bullish signal on NEXTDC (ASX:NXT) following the formation of a pattern over a period of 26-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $9.27 to the range of $10.10 - $10:30 according to standard principles of technical analysis.
• Bell Potter has maintained its Buy rating on Nufarm (ASX:NUF) and raised its price target from $6.75 to $7.15 due to the agricultural chemical company releasing strong FY22 results despite facing headwinds of deregistration’s in Europe and dry conditions across the Mediterranean and North America in the second half of FY22.